Duho, stool - Specimen details
| Catalogue Number: 40669 | |||||
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Plant Name | 37.00 ZYGOPHYLLACEAE Guaiacum sp. | Entry Book Number | 5:1860 | |
| Artefact Name | Duho, stool | Vernacular Name | |||
| Iso Country | Dominica | TDWG Region | Dominica | ||
| Parts Held | Duho, stool | Geography Description | Dominica, Carib Cave | ||
| Uses | Duho, stoolUse: MATERIALS - Wood User: Man | TDWG use | MATERIALS - Wood | ||
| Storage | Archaeological | Related Items | |||
| Donor | Dr John Imray | Donor No | |||
| Donor Date | 23/01/1860 | Donor Notes | |||
| Collector | Dr John Imray | Collector No | |||
| Collection Notes | Collection Date | ||||
| Exhibition | Expedition | ||||
| Number Components | Publication | ||||
| Notes: | (Previous description = 'Metatl or Trough for flour making - used for rubbing down flour for making cakes. Used by Caribs: of unknown antiquity. Found in a Carib Cave. Circa 16th century'.)x0Dx0Ax0Dx0AIdentified as a 'Duho'. Used by Cacique (chiefs) as a stool be, tween 12th and 16th century.x0Dx0Ax0Dx0AFrom Lennox Honychuch's article:x0Dx0A'Imray wrote to Hooker that 'it was found by a negro boy in a cave among the woods of Dominica. There were some objects of the same description which unfortunately I was unable to procure.F, rom its weight it is made from some hard wood of this country. I almost think Coubaril'. There is no indication of where the cave was located.x0Dx0Ax0Dx0AIt is the first time that a seat of this kind has been attributed to any island in the Eastern Caribbean. The, se seats are usually associated with the Taino people who lived in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Cuba. In the Taino language such a seat is called a 'Duho'. These Duhos were carved with sacred images and were used by chiefs and shamans or priests.x0D, x0Ax0Dx0AThis Dominica Duho is carved in the form of a male spirit figure lying on his back with his head raised. The space for his eyes and mouth would have been filled with hammered gold or shell. The man's ribs are carved into the wood and a sign for fertili, ty is carved on his chest. Part of his arms seem to have fallen off.'x0Dx0Ax0Dx0APreviously classified as Hymenaea courbaril L. until wood sampled and identified as Guaiacum sp. in 2005 by NML Conservation Department and the USDA Forest Services.x0Dx0Ax0Dx0AAdditional re, ference: Ostapkowicz, J., Ramsey, C. B., Wiedenhoeft, A. C., Brock, F., Higham, T., & Wilson, S. M. (2011). This relic of antiquity: Fifth to fifteenth century wood carvings from the southern Lesser Antilles. In: Communities in Contact: Essays in Archaeol, ogy, Ethnohistory & Ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, eds. Corinne L. Hofman & Anne van Duijvenbode, pp. 137-170. Leiden: Sidestone Press. | ||||